James Lincoln was six foot four, with a trimly built and eminently dignified. He had an impeccably groomed white beard and solemn philosopher’s eyes behind thick glasses, his skin leathery and beginning to be wrinkled. He was forty nine years old and had been teaching since he was twenty two. He’d known since he was six that this was what he wanted to do with his life.
Twenty seven years, six children and countless pupils later, Mr. Lincoln had decided to spend a year teaching students on homebound and hospital bound instruction, having stepped down from his position as head of the English department at a local high school and not ready to accept another full time job yet. His wife, a college professor, had received an offer to teach at Oxford that semester, and he’d stayed behind so that their youngest daughter, Olivia, could finish her last year of high school. Lorraine was in England with their youngest son, Jamal, who was nine years old and had a schedule that was far more flexible. Mr. Lincoln glanced at the folder he’d been given. The boy he was supposed to teach was nine.
The story had stayed with him since he’d read the inch long blurb in the newspaper a few weeks ago. “Mother stabs son,” it had began, and, naming none of the people involved, had related an incident in which a drug-addled 26 year old had been taken into police custody after she nearly killed her nine year old son. It was one of those scenes that burned their way into long-term memory by the sheer horror of the idea they imparted. That, and Mr. Lincoln had immediately thought of his own nine year old, who at that moment was sprawled in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows, a Roald Dahl book propped open in front of him. Jamal was the family darling, the “surprise” who came along seven years after James and Lorraine had decided they weren’t going to have any more children. What if he had been born into a different family? Mr. Lincoln had wondered. What if this little boy in the paper were Jamal?
When he’d gotten the phone call three days ago telling him that he was being assigned a new student, Mr. Lincoln hadn’t put two and two together until he asked why the child was in the hospital. Now, striding down the hallway of the pediatrics unit after signing in at the nurse’s desk, he wondered what to expect, what it was fair to expect, whether he should expect anything. What kind of child would this be, and how did you attempt to teach math and English to someone whose own mother had attacked him with a knife two and a half weeks before?
When he reached the door of the hospital room, he paused for a moment, taking stock before Isaac noticed him. Lying motionless, gazing at the patch of gray sky he could see outside the window, Isaac looked like the little boy he was, despite the visible bandages and the dark circles under his eyes. He was small, definitely smaller than Jamal, who was made to sit in the middle row for every class picture, his hands folded on his lap. For a moment, Mr. Lincoln found it hard to believe that the child in front of him had had the strength to withstand being stabbed. For a moment, he didn’t believe that any mother, no matter how unstable, would be able to use a knife on someone so physically vulnerable. Even if the past few weeks had taken their toll, Mr. Lincoln reasoned, Isaac couldn’t have been all that big to begin with.
Again, he found himself jolted by the horror of the story, and he wondered where to begin. The same as he would at any other time, he decided, taking a deep breath.
“You must be Isaac,” he said, and Isaac looked up, startled.
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. “That’s me.”
“I’m James Lincoln.” Mr. Lincoln was careful not to move across the room too quickly, not wanting to come on too strong. He extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” Tentatively, Isaac shook it.
“They took the stitches out awhile ago,” he volunteered, “but they kept the bandages on until yesterday. So until that I couldn’t shake hands.”
That was all he said, and Mr. Lincoln sat down in the chair next to the bed and opened his briefcase. “That must have been a relief,” he observed, shuffling through some papers.
Isaac nodded. “It wasn’t so bad.” He avoided direct eye contact, Mr. Lincoln noted. He was going to have to win this child over.
“I’m going to be helping you with your school work over the next few weeks,” Mr. Lincoln told Isaac, “so I’d like to know a few things about you. That’ll be your first homework assignment.”
“Homework?” Isaac’s eyes widened. He’d never heard of any teacher assigning homework before he’d even taught anything.
“What?” Mr. Lincoln smiled. “You don’t like homework?”
“Well. . .” Isaac bit his lip uncertainly, “I never heard of a teacher assigning homework on the first day of school.”
Mr. Lincoln grinned at that. “I see what you mean,” he agreed. “We only have an hour and a half a day to work together, however, and so a lot of the assignments I give you, you’ll have to do on your own. This first one won’t be hard, though. I’m just going to write down a few questions for you and I’d like you to answer them for me. That way, I’ll get to know you and how you like to learn.”
Isaac looked wary. “What kind of questions?”
“These kind,” Mr. Lincoln told him, taking a piece of paper out of his briefcase and uncapping his pen. “I’ll write them down for you.” He thought for a moment.
Nora stuck her head through the door at just that moment. “Ike, I just wanted to see how you were. . .” she began, then smiled. “You must be Mr. Lincoln,” she said. “I’m sorry for interrupting. . . I’m Nora Conway, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Mr. Lincoln replied. “Isaac and I were just getting to know each other.” He didn’t miss the tender look that softened Nora’s eyes as she grinned at Isaac.
“Is he being good?” Nora inquired, pleasantly.
“Of course,” Mr. Lincoln assured her.
“Is that true, Ike?” Nora asked Isaac, who couldn’t help from smiling guiltily, even though he knew she was joking and also that he hadn’t done anything to get in trouble for.
“Um. . . yeah.” he managed, blushing.
“You’re not giving Mr. Lincoln a hard time?” Nora persisted, raising an eyebrow at him.
Isaac folded his arms across his chest, pretending to be insulted. “Nora, would I ever give anyone a hard time?”
Mr. Lincoln laughed. Nora shook her head, speaking honestly now. “Never,” she agreed. “I’ll be back at 2:00, honey, okay?”
Isaac nodded. “Okay.”
“Have fun,” Nora told him. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Lincoln. I‘m sorry I bothered you.” She backed out of the room as quickly as she could, closing the door behind her.
“What would I change about school, if I could change anything. . . and as many things. . . as I wanted?” Mr. Lincoln read aloud. “That will be the first question.”
“Anything I want?” Isaac asked.
“Anything.” Mr. Lincoln jotted down another question. “What is my definition of a good teacher? What is my definition of a bad teacher? Give examples.” He skipped a line. “Is there such a thing as a bad student? Why might a student do badly in school? What should a teacher do to help someone who isn’t doing well?”
“What do you mean, ‘is there such a thing as a bad student?’” Isaac burst out. “There definitely is such a thing as a bad student.”
“Well, I believe that just because some people don’t get very good grades doesn’t mean they are bad students,” Mr. Lincoln told him. “They might need help in a certain subject or they may not be interested in what they’re learning. There are a lot of different reasons why a person might not do well in school, but I don’t believe in bad students.” He met Isaac’s eyes. “If you do, however, tell me that when you answer the questions and explain why you think so.” He wrote down another question. “What is the subject I am most interested in? What makes it interesting? Do I think this is a hard subject? Why or why not?” His next question was predictable. “What subject do I find the least interesting? Is there anything I can think of to do to make it more interesting? Do I think this is a hard subject? Why or why not?” He thought for a moment. “Isaac, how many questions do we have so far?”
“Five,” Isaac answered. “How many are you going to make up?”
“Just one more,” Mr. Lincoln told him. “Before a teacher teaches me anything, what should he or she know about me? Is there anything I would like to tell them?” He handed Isaac the sheet of paper and a few pages of loose-leaf. “You can write as much as you want,” he said, “and there aren’t any wrong answers. If there are any questions that you don’t want to answer or don’t know how to answer, let me know.”
Isaac nodded. “Okay.” He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about this, or if he believed that there really weren’t going to be any wrong answers. Still, it was better homework than his teacher gave.
“Now that you have your homework,” Mr. Lincoln said, “we can begin. I’m going to ask you to do a few different work pages-” (he was hesitant to use the word ‘tests,’) “-that will help me to know how you are doing in different areas. That way, I’ll know what you should be working on.” He paused, thoughtfully. “Do your best, but these aren’t tests, and no one will see them except for me and you. They aren’t for a grade, either. And you won‘t be able to do all of the problems on every sheet, because some of them are for kids in much, much higher grades than yours. Don‘t worry and do what you can.”
“Okay,” Isaac agreed, but he was apprehensive anyway. What if Mr. Lincoln was lying? What if they were tests. . . and he failed them?
Most of the papers started out with easy problems and worked up to harder ones. . . really hard ones. The kind of math problems that had letters in them as well as numbers, and lots and lots of fractions. There were a million word problems, too, and Isaac wasn’t very good at those. The English was pretty bad, too. Some of the sentences didn’t look like they had anything wrong with them at all. Some of the vocabulary words he had never even heard before. Isaac could feel a headache building behind his eyes.
“Okay,” Mr. Lincoln said, after what seemed like an eternity. “That’ll be enough for today.”
Isaac nodded. “That felt like a lot,” he admitted, managing a smile.
Mr. Lincoln looked concerned. “That’s another thing,” he added. “If there’s ever a day when we’re working and you feel really tired or sick or anything that you feel is making it hard for you to concentrate and work, let me know. You won’t do as well if you don’t feel up to it, and that’s not your fault.” He began gathering his things together. “All right?”
“Okay,” Isaac agreed. He was tired now, and he decided he’d wait awhile before he started that homework. “See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow,” Mr. Lincoln confirmed. “Same time.”
“Same place,” Isaac quipped, even though his lack of mobility had begun to irritate him over the past day or two.
“Same place,” Mr. Lincoln agreed. He really liked Isaac, he decided. There was something about the little boy that was tremendously appealing, and he found himself looking forward to working with him over the next few weeks. “See you later.